Skeleton in the Closet
by usoverlooked
Summary: Sometimes the things we hold onto say a lot more about us then we're willing to admit. Like an old jacket from someone, perhaps?


_a/n: So I found this going through old Word documents and it's from when a group of us discussed the damn jacket on tumblr. Just to give some background/fun facts/etc. So reviews would be great, favorites are nice too. Thanks for reading._** Disclaimer: _Community_ is not mine.**

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"Why do you have this?" Abed asks as he is looking through Annie's closet over spring break. Annie's trying to show him and Troy what "organized space" looks like and so she asked them to look through her closet for an example. Of course, she's realizing as Abed holds out his's/her's/Starburn jacket that maybe this wasn't her best plan.

"I just…You never know when you might need a jacket." Her voice lilts on the last word, like it always done when she's nervous. She's also doing that thing with her hands where she's clutching one in the other and sort of wringing them, Abed notes. He nods, but doesn't believe it. He drops it anyways because he won't push her, that's not what friends do.

But here's the skinny. Annie kept that jacket because it's the nicest thing a guy's done for her. Well, a guy in the boyfriend-y, kissy, going-steady way. Friend guys have done tons of other stuff, like Troy holding doors open for her (although most of the time it's because she sort of scoots in ahead of him and so it's by accident – still counts right?) and Jeff telling her that she had food on her blouse (when Annie's being totally honest with herself, she recognizes that a) he was probably just looking at her boobs and b) Jeff is probably just a friend, mostly, probably, maybe). Abed does nice stuff too, like setting up their DVR for _Once Upon a Time _(which the three roommates watch together unabashedly) or explaining the more Meta jokes of _Psych_. But the jacket is by far the nicest thing a beau (or imagined beau- she's not really sure what he is in that instance) has done for her.

So she keeps the damn jacket. Annie's a reasonable girl, she knows it's an icky jacket and she will never actually wear it. But it's like back in high school, when she wasn't Annie, she was Adderall Annie. Or just Addie. That was all she was. But she wanted a letterman jacket worse than anything. Sure, she could have joined track (she probably should've – colleges like those sort of things, her mom was always reminding her, never mind that she runs like a goose) or even an academic club and lettered in one of those. That wasn't what she wanted; she wanted a boy's lettermen jacket. One that said "Barnes" on the back preferably (which seems silly now because it's _Troy_ but c'est la vie) but she just wanted a jacket. Or a class ring or any of those silly tokens the other girls took for granted.

Annie knows that Abed didn't mean anything by the vest; it was a way to pacify her. Or maybe he just didn't want to have to hold on to the smelly thing (which still smelled mildly of Starburns after three washes). He'd probably forgotten he'd even given it to her.

Meanwhile, Abed was trying to analyze what this meant. Annie had made it clear she was interested in Jeff (even on the day he had kissed her, he remembered Annie flirting with Jeff priorly). But she'd kept his jacket. Which, he now observed, was probably hers by now (possession is 9/10's of the law and whatnot) or Starburn's, seeing as she had it and Starburns made or bought it. He was thinking of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and how Angel gave Buffy his jacket and then they were a couple. But maybe it's more like in _Inspector Spacetime_ when the Inspector gave Donnella his jacket when he accidentally abducted her from her bridal shower. They were always just friends and they kissed once too (when they met Edgar Allen Poe and the giant bumblebee was attacking everyone – it was one of Annie's favorite episodes, perhaps ironic in this circumstance) so maybe it was nothing. But, see, Abed had a sort of crush on Annie, so for him the jacket was a something. Maybe crush wasn't the right word for it. But she was just always on his peripherals and he had always been rather attracted to her.

It had begun before the study group. She had commented on his t-shirt once. It was from _Lost_ and had the mystery numbers on it (his cousin had sent it to him as a starting school gift) and Annie had pointed to it and said "See ya around Locke" one day as she left class. He was intrigued by her because she was pretty but quiet. She was friendly but sort of forgettable. Then she'd gone and made a tv reference and he'd sort of stopped forgetting her. This was becoming problematic because when Abed stopped forgetting he started noticing almost everything.

Abed noticed that Annie liked tea but drank coffee when a paper was due. He noticed that she was most irritable on Wednesdays, but he never really knew why. He knew that she liked to paint her fingernails but not her toenails and the whole story of why (which had taken her nearly a half hour to tell). Abed knew Annie's favorite color, tv show, cousin and all of that. The thing was, he didn't know what to do with all these things he knew. Abed was good at knowing things, he wasn't so good at feelings.

So he thinks that maybe he should ask again why she's keeping it, but she looks rather stressed and he doesn't want to hurt her, so he shrugs.

"Cool. Cool, cool, cool." He says and smiles and leaves the jacket in the room. Annie bits her lip and thinks about saying something but doesn't. This is how it is with them; him not wanting to hurt her and her not wanting to overstep anything.

_end_


End file.
